German teen who stabbed policeman was ISIL ‘martyr’

A 15-year-old girl who attacked a Hanover police officer in February had been persuaded by ISIL members in Turkey to undertake a “martyr operation” in Germany, federal prosecutors said Friday.

In addition to attempted murder, the girl, identified as Safia S., is now also accused of “support for a foreign terrorist organization.”

She stabbed the police officer with a steak knife at the city’s central station in February. The officer survived.

Germany’s federal prosecution authority announced the new charges as it said it was taking over the investigation from the prosecutor in Hanover.

In a statement, the federal prosecutor said the girl was in touch online with ISIL fighters in Syria in November 2015, and flew to Turkey in January 2016 where she planned to travel to Syria to join the jihad.

She was brought back to Germany by her mother, however, in Istanbul “she was convinced by IS members to carry out a martyrdom operation for the group in Germany,” the federal prosecutor said.

The girl has a German father and a Moroccan mother, according to German paper Bild.